Intriguing Species Found In The Philippines

Published: June - 2004

Remember those hunts we told you about in the Philippines? The country was opened to hunting in 2002 by that young hunting entrepreneur, Jay Carlson of Mindoro Safaris. He started off by offering hunts for Asian water buffalo, Philippine sambar and wild pigs on Mindoro Island. We originally learned about the hunts through Honor Roll subscriber C. Truman Clem, who went on Carlson's inaugural hunt and took a good Asian water buffalo.

Now, we have a report from subscriber David J. Hanlin, who hunted with Carlson this past April. He reports taking some other intriguing species. One of those is what Hanlin refers to as a "forest" buffalo. He explains that it seems to be a cross between the Asian water buffalo and the tamaraw. The tamaraw (bubalus mindorensis) is found only on Mindoro Island, is protected as an endangered species and is on the Appendix I of CITES. While there is a listing for it in the Safari Club International record book, there are no entries.

The tamaraw is stockily built, standing at 39 to 42 inches at the shoulder, and resembles a very small water buffalo. It is gray/black or dark brown with white markings above the eyes and hoofs and white crescents on the throat and neck. The tamaraw is very aggressive, and Hanlin says the hybrid he shot was as well. He says he hunted this animal, which looks like an Asian buffalo but is proportioned like a tamaraw, at the lower elevations of the rainforest, where you also find the tamaraw. "This is definitely another species that had not been accounted for previously," he says as a former 10-year member of the SCI record book committee.

Hanlin also took an 86½-inch water buffalo. These animals are higher up the mountains, and while they are not usually very aggressive, Hanlin says his buff had an infection that made him particularly irritable, and the animal charged him. "He piled up less than 10 feet from my gun barrel," he writes. Hanlin says the hunting is all in dense forest with a visibility........(continued)